Revolt On The Convention Floor

An attempt today to challenge the rules at the Republican National Convention was ignored by the establishment leadership. The floor became raucous when various groups of delegates called for a roll-call vote for the convention rules. It was ignored by the Chair against procedural rules. Delegates from Colorado and Virginia were reported as having walked out.

“We have witnessed an abomination and the implosion of the Republican Party was we have known it,” Texas delegate Ivette C. Lozano told TheBlaze. “Many are leaving the convention.”

Several groups managed to produce a petition from nine states to that said over half of their delegates wanted a roll call vote on the rules. The RNC establishment claims that three states withdrew their names. When temporary Chair Steve Womack of Arkansas asked for the voice vote, and ignored the petition, delegates began shouting "roll call!" When the Chair returned claiming insufficient support for the petition, the floor erupted in outrage once again.

#RNCinCLE gets raucous as delegates seek to make their votes count over party leaders.—@MarkScheering #tcot

TheBlaze' Leigh Munsil spoke with Colorado delegate and Delegates Unbound co-founder Regina Thompson on Facebook Live. "Well what you witnessed today was an attempt by the delegates to say 'we want a roll call vote before we accept these rules.'" Normally, the rules are accepted in a simple voice vote—yea or nay. With a roll call vote, each delegate submits their vote, so the convention can know exactly how many votes were cast one way or the other. This is to avoid the Chair from claiming a yea vote regardless of what is heard on the floor. "We wanted the option of having a roll call vote and seeing what the delegates really wanted as far as the rules go, and as we saw the RNC was determined to stop that effort. As you saw, we almost had a riot. I am so proud of the delegates. You know, we talked to some of them, but we didn't talk to the hundreds of them."

Delegate and Senator Mike Lee told reporters on the floor "this is not about Mr. Trump. This is about having a fair rules process."

Delegate and former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli told FOX Business "We were talking to the Trump campaign and the RNC for weeks. Now mind you, the unbinding people can't talk to either of them. We're not about unbinding, that's not our effort. Our effort is a sincere effort to rewrite the rules and get transparency and accountability, and shift power to the grassroots, get rid of lawyers in the RNC, fix some of the problems Donald Trump himself identified in the nomination, like these rigged behind closed doors selection committees that pick delegates that are in Cleveland today. He's absolutely right about that. We proposed to fix that and they opposed it. So we wanted the ability to stop that package of rules and go back and fix them. The only option available was to vote no."